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Ex-AP Reporter – Media Imbalance Toward Israel Becomes Rooted
by IPT News • Dec 1, 2014 at 3:51
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Life as a foreign correspondent often is portrayed as dangerous, sexy
work for a journalist.
But it also can be insular – you're a stranger in a strange land, often
dropping in with little knowledge about history, culture and context. That
can inhibit the breadth of reporting presented to the world, a glaring flaw
when it comes to reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, former
Associated Press Jerusalem correspondent Matti Friedman writes in an article for The Atlantic.
Journalists monitor each other's work and tend to view human rights
groups and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well meaning
do-gooders immune from scrutiny. "Are they bloated, ineffective, or
corrupt? Are they helping, or hurting? We don't know," Friedman writes,
"because these groups are to be quoted, not covered."
Over time, that arrangement helped entrench a narrative among foreign
correspondents in Israel, writes Friedman, who reported out of the AP's
Jerusalem office from 2006-11. It is the second essay from the veteran
journalist on how the media covers Israel. In August, Friedman provided first-hand examples of stories which were spiked if
they made the Palestinians look intransigent, or made Israelis look good.
A "distaste for Israel has come to be something between an
acceptable prejudice and a prerequisite for entry," he writes in the Atlantic
piece. "The Israel story" is "a simple narrative in which
there is a bad guy who doesn't want peace and a good guy who does."
A New York Times editor unintentionally reinforced Friedman's
point last month when he took to Twitter to admit his willingness to ignore Palestinian incitement
and bigotry until "they have [a] sovereign state to discriminate
with."
When events conflict with that narrative, Friedman writes, they are
under-reported or not reported at all. So a 2013 rally at the West Bank's
Al-Quds University supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and invoking
Nazi imagery was widely known among Western journalists but generated
little coverage until Brandeis University suspended a partnership program with Al-Quds.
Or, more recently: "The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a
rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other
civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn't report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was
launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters
would burst into the AP's Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP
wouldn't report it. (This also happened.)"
Hamas understands this reality and manipulates journalists to further
advance it. So some stories hint that Hamas no longer is wed to its
founding, anti-Semitic charter and its calls for Israel's destruction.
Others falsely cast Hamas as open to peace and moderation.
Friedman's essay is important because he writes from experience, not
anger. It is packed with too much insight to fully capture here. To read
the full essay, click here.
Plotting New Violence, Hamas Dissolves Unity Government with
Fatah
by IPT News • Dec 1, 2014 at
12:18 pm
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Hamas announced Sunday that the unity government with Fatah
has collapsed.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri accused Palestinian Authority (PA)
chairman Mahmoud Abbas of spreading lies by claiming that Hamas and Israel
held secret negotiations concerning Hamas rule in the West Bank.
In an interview on Egyptian television, reported by Israel's Channel 10,
Abbas claimed that Israel offered Hamas control over half of the West Bank
and future negotiations would decide control over the remaining territory.
Abbas' unsupported claims overlook the fact that Israel foiled an extensive
Hamas plot to initiate a third Intifada and a carry out a coup to oust the PA in the West Bank earlier this
year.
At the time, Abbas called the Israeli information "a grave threat
to the unity of the Palestinian people and its future," ordering his
security forces to investigate the Hamas plot.
Now, the internal Palestinian rift has led Hamas to end the unity
government with Abbas' Fatah faction.
This development comes in context of yet another major Hamas terrorist
plot. Last Thursday, the Shin Bet (Israel's Security Agency) and the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) foiled a large-scale Hamas network in the West Bank that planned
to attack the Teddy soccer stadium and the light rail system in Jerusalem.
The plot also featured car bombings and kidnapping of Israelis in the West
Bank and abroad. The cell also wanted to attack Israeli military and
traffic targets in the West Bank, infiltrate into Israeli communities, and
initiate terrorist cells in Jordan to conduct cross-border attacks. The
uncovered plot revealed numerous terror cells and Hamas personnel training
abroad.
More than 30 people were arrested.
According to the Shin Bet, Hamas' headquarters in Turkey is overseeing
the network of West Bank terrorist cells. The terrorist organization's base
in Turkey was also directly responsible for attempting to orchestrate a
mass-casualty attack and overthrow of the Palestinian Authority earlier
this year.
Turkey is a NATO country that openly supports Hamas, a recognized terrorist
organization. It denies the Israeli claim, saying it talks with Hamas,
"but would not under any circumstances allow a terror group to operate
from its territory."
But senior Hamas official Salah Aruri openly operates in the country,
and is suspected of helping facilitate the June kidnapping and murder of three
Yeshiva students which triggered a summer-long conflict between Israel and
Hamas in Gaza.
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